Section 95. Back Up Your Music Using .Mac Backup (Mac Only)


95. Back Up Your Music Using .Mac Backup (Mac Only)

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

20 Purchase Audio from the iTunes Music Store


SEE ALSO

23 Authorize a Computer to Play Purchased Music

94 Back Up Your Music to CD or DVD


Mac users are naturally a little better served when it comes to using and protecting their iTunes' musicApple can't help but be a little bit partisan. Mac OS X integrates with iTunes in ways that Windows can't, and if you're a member of Apple's .Mac service (for a $99 annual membership fee), you have access to a utility that makes backing up your iTunes Library a straightforward, painless, and even entirely hands-off affair. This utility is called Backup , and it's available to anyone with Mac OS X 10.2 ("Jaguar") or higher and a paid .Mac account.

NOTES

Mac trial users can download and run Backup, but the only available backup location you can select is iDisk . You must have a full paid .Mac account if you want to back up to CD, DVD, or to a mounted volume such as a hard disk.

Sign up for a .Mac account using the Sign Up button in the .Mac pane of the System Preferences application, or by visiting http://www.mac.com.


Backup works by aggregating related files together into collections called QuickPicks , each of which can be selected or deselected for backup depending on your needs and the available storage space on your backup medium (CD or DVD, iDisk space, or a locally mounted or networked hard disk). Restoring backed -up files from the backup medium is as simple as selecting them from the backup repository and clicking a button.

If you have a .Mac account, you should be using Backup already to protect the important files all over your Mac; but even if all you're interested in preserving is your iTunes' music, Backup provides useful QuickPicks to serve your needs, and it's never too soon to start getting into the habit of using it regularly.

1.
Download and Install Backup

If you don't already have Backup installed, you must download it from the .Mac website, http://www.mac.com. Open this site in Safari or another browser. Log in using your .Mac member name and password. In the navigation bar along the left side of the page is an icon for Backup ; click this link to go to the Backup page. Click the Download Backup 2 button. On the page full of download links that appears next , Backup 2.0.2 appears in the third column, under Explore . Click the download icon (a down-arrow) to download the application.

Double-click the installer file when it's fully downloaded. Proceed through the installation procedure as directed.

2.
Choose a Backup Location

Launch Backup from the Applications folder. You'll have to wait for a few minutes as Backup examines your disk and builds up its catalog of available files and determines the sizes of each of the QuickPicks, which are the collections listed under Items in the main Backup window.

From the menu at the top left, choose a backup location. You can choose Back up to iDisk, Back up to CD/DVD , or Back up to Drive . Pick a location that suits your needs and the backup hardware you have available.

NOTE

iDisk is generally not a good location for backing up your music filesthere's not enough storage space available, and it's slow to access. CD/DVD is a good solution if you have a suitable burner , but you'll end up making a sequence of discs each time you back up your music, which can get unwieldy. Perhaps the best, neatest, and fastest solution is backing up to a hard driveif you have an external FireWire or USB 2.0 disk, or a remote drive mounted over the network, you can schedule an automatic backup to that location that doesn't even require you to be present as the Backup utility does its work.

3.
Select the iTunes Purchased Music QuickPick

There are two QuickPicks of use to you here: iTunes Library and iTunes Purchased Music . Both these QuickPicks include your iTunes 4 Music Library database file, but iTunes Purchased Music only includes files you've bought from the iTunes Music Store , omitting song files you've ripped from CD or imported through other means. If all your imported music is on CDs that you own, you might consider those purchased CDs to be your backup of those files, and you can save backup disk space by backing up only the purchased music from the iTunes Music Store that you don't have saved in any other form. If you have enough space on the backup location, however, you might choose the comprehensive iTunes Library QuickPick to back up all your music files to the same location. The iTunes Library QuickPick option preserves all your CD music's info tags as you've painstakingly set them.

95. Back Up Your Music Using .Mac Backup (Mac Only)


TIPS

It's possiblebut unnecessaryto select both iTunes-related QuickPicks for backup; iTunes Purchased Music is a subset of iTunes Library . However, selecting both QuickPicks makes it possible to back up your entire music collection for safekeeping and then choose to restore only your purchased music after a data-loss incident.

If you choose to back up to iDisk, the only iTunes-related QuickPick is iTunes playlist , which lets you choose songs in a specific playlist to back up. This limitation is present because of the relatively small size of iDisk as a storage medium (250MB by default, although you can purchase more space up to a total of 1GB). If the playlist you select has too much music to fit into your iDisk space, you won't be able to back it up.

4.
Prepare Backup Media

If you're backing up to CD or DVD, a readout at the bottom of the Backup window tells you how many discs will be required to hold the entire backup set. Make sure that you have the required number of writable discs handy, and that your drive can support burning the appropriate format (you can't burn DVD discs in a CD burner, for example).

If you're backing up to a drive, make sure that the drive is mounted on your Mac and you can navigate it in the Finder. Click Set at the top of the Backup window to navigate to the location on the desired disk and create an archive file for Backup to use.

5.
Back Up Your Data

Click Backup Now . Backup begins copying files to the selected location. If you're backing up to CD or DVD, Backup prompts you to insert a new disc each time one is filled with data. You must be present throughout the backup process to feed your computer new discs. If you're backing up to a drive, however, you can walk away while Backup does its work unattended.

TIP

Click the Schedule button (a calendar icon, fourth from the left at the bottom of the Backup window) to schedule automatic backups to a drive. A good policy is to run a backup once a week, at a time of day when the computer is not in use (for example, 5:00 in the morning). Backup is very processor- intensive and should not be run while you're working with other applications.

6.
Choose the Restoration Medium

Suppose that the worst should happenyour hard disk crashes and you have to install a new one. Or suppose that you upgraded to a new computer and lost your old data, or that you accidentally deleted one of your song files from the iTunes Music folder. It's time to restore the lost files from your backup.

Launch Backup and then select Restore from iDisk, Restore from CD/DVD , or Restore from Drive , depending on where you backed up your music. If you backed up to a drive, Backup accesses the archive file and displays the list of QuickPicks found in the repository. If you backed up to CD or DVD, Backup prompts you to insert the first disc in the backup set. It reads the catalog information and displays the QuickPicks in the listing window.

7.
Select Files to Restore

Select the iTunes Library or iTunes Purchased Music QuickPick (depending on which one you used to back up the files originally) and click the Information button (the blue i icon in the lower-left corner of the Backup window) to reveal the detail drawer. This drawer shows you all the files in the QuickPick collection that were found in the backup, listed alphabetically .

Scroll to the files you want to restore and enable the check box for each one. Be sure to select iTunes 4 Music Library for restoration if you want to restore all your iTunes database information, such as your playlists and star ratings.

TIP

To restore all the files in the QuickPick, simply select its check box in the Restore column in the main Backup window. Otherwise a is shown in the check box to indicate that only certain selected files will be restored.

8.
Restore Lost Files

Click Restore Now . The selected files are copied from the backup repository and placed back in their original locations on the disk. (You are prompted to insert the appropriate CD or DVD if you backed up to that medium.) You should now be able to launch iTunes and use your music as though nothing had ever happened !



iPod + iTunes for Windows and Mac in a Snap
iPod + iTunes for Windows and Mac in a Snap (2nd Edition)
ISBN: 0672328992
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 152
Authors: Brian Tiemann

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